Compare to Proust’s clementine.

It may be a nested retreading of ground to have matrons confined to homes, as in Great Expectations.

Prisons are a theme of personal import with Dickens, as his father was imprisoned for a time for unpaid debts. This precipitated Dickens’ experience in childhood of hard labor as a shoe black. The question of forgiving a prison is relevant to Rigaud and Mr. Dorrit. In the sense that quarantine is a prison of a kind, it is also relevant to Clenum and Meagles.

_Testimonial_: I have to surface from my library where it was that I read Kafka's belief that Dickens is a great writer but that he too often retreads previously conquered ground. Perhaps it was Kafka's library. I enjoy reading Dickens, but I largely agree with that characterization. I'm not sure if I will be able to articulate my understanding of the text in the same way that I did Austen, and as I have struggled to do with [Bleak House](https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/ccf2dd37-c662-454c-8fe7-1392b98d29a7), but that is what I will try to do. # Book the First ## Poverty ### Chapter 1 _Sun and Shadow_